“It’s about helping individuals, through the power of community, unlock and achieve the greatness within themselves,” says Sam Jacobs, of Pavilion, a community and platform for people who are trying to accelerate and improve their sales career and their performance in sales. On today’s episode of The Conscious Entrepreneur, Sam talks to host Alex Raymond about what happens when a group of likeminded people—and a concrete set of curricula—align and operate to make the world better. In a world that believes in growth at any cost, Pavilion believes—and teaches its business owners—that growth comes from aligning the sales marketing customer success and money is inextricable from delivering value.

Pavilion has recently, after a rocky period, rediscovered its center. In a continued effort to be genuine and vulnerable, Sam admits to having made some professional and personal mistakes recently that may have been the downfall of a lesser group. But, as Sam explains, challenges, which we all face, are just opportunities to learn the big ongoing lessons of life.

Throughout today’s conversation, Sam reveals the difficulties of living a public life, the message at the heart of his book “Kind People Finish First” and his five criteria for having an objectively good day.

Quotes

• “Community was the thing that I discovered, or stumbled upon, that was one of the solutions to how I was encountering challenges and obstacles in my day to day work and I needed some way of stress-testing the solutions. I needed some way of avoiding common errors and common pitfalls. And that’s where community rose up.” (4:36 | Sam Jacobs)
• “When we’ve been our strongest, when we’ve been the brightest beacon, it’s because we’re confident—or I am confident, or the company or whatever—the company has a point of view, the company has a language, the company has a vocabulary. And when we’ve lost our way, which has happened over the last couple of years, it’s when we’ve been led by financial motivations or talking about the world in terms of features and product sets, not in terms of common values and common vision.” (8:34 | Sam Jacobs)
• “That’s why I say, ‘back in the crucible,’ because it’s been a journey to get back to the point where, ‘Don’t worry about what it’s worth, don’t worry about anything but making sure you’re alive, that you’re profitable so that you can be alive, so that you keep helping people and keep fixing things and keep making the foundation better so that you can continue to be of service.” (26:10 | Sam Jacobs)
• “The lesson that I’ve learned over the last couple of months is, everything that’s happening is perfect, it’s not just OK. And that this is an opportunity. Every test, every challenge is an opportunity to rise to the occasion.” (27:38 | Sam Jacobs)
• “You don’t know how somebody hears something, or when they need to hear it, or from whom they need to hear it. Even when you think, ‘God, who am I to say these things?’ Well, you’re somebody that might touch somebody and you might impact somebody in a positive way.” (31:09 | Sam Jacobs)

Links

Connect with Sam Jacobs:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samfjacobs/

Website: https://www.joinpavilion.com/

Connect with Alex Raymond:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/afraymond/

Website: https://consciousentrepreneur.us/

HiveCast.fm is a proud sponsor of The Conscious Entrepreneur Podcast.

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

“I’ve had multiple founders say ‘I cry on the bathroom floor before my weekly stand up,’ and that same founder was at an event doing the ‘rah-rah’ spiel.” Such is the nature of business-founding, says today’s guest Brad Baum: the personal and professional stress and sacrifice is hidden by the (albeit necessary) public-facing hustle culture, which, in turn, creates yet another element of pressure. As common as mental health struggles are among entrepreneurs, they remain, nonetheless stigmatized. Brad is seeking to change that with the Founder Mental Health Pledge, which he founded and co-created to support founders’ mental health and promote a culture of mental health in the startup community.

Signing the pledge—which many industry leaders already have in the short period of time since its founding—means promising to treat the direct cost of caring for founders’ mental health as a legitimate business expense and puts mental health as a priority. Brad talks to host Alex Raymond about the ability of such a pledge to build a bridge between the historically distant relationship between founder and investor, and the founders and VCs reporting that the pledge helped them win deals. They also discuss the changing attitudes toward mental health among Gen Z and on social media.

The overwhelming consensus from the startup world has been one of compassion and a desire to help. Join today’s discussion to learn more about how the Mental Health Pledge is doing its part to change the way we treat founders and their well-being.

Quotes

• “On the periphery, founders are sort of forced to run around to the Forbes Under 30 Summit and all these conferences and in board meetings and when they’re fundraising, everything’s ‘Up and to the right. We’re crushing it, man! Hustle-hustle, Grind,’ eighty-hour weeks, that whole spiel. And it’s not that that’s not true sometimes, it’s that, I think, the bulk of the time, you’re running around like a chicken with its head cut off, trying to figure out what to do next, you don’t have guidance, and it’s a struggle.” (4:55 | Brad Baum)
• “We think the right signal to send is: treat mental health the same way you would treat accounting, legal, etc.— all these other expenses.” (12:59 | Brad Baum)
• “It’s been incredible to see—the ‘community’ word gets played out—but it’s more like this recognition of both the problem but then also recognition of the opportunity to change it.” (25:29 | Brad Baum)
• “There’s a social—not a moment in time, not fad—but a complete societal shift in how we think about our mental health, especially propagated by the rising generations and social media, where it’s no longer—actually, I can’t say it’s no longer—we’re getting to a place where it will no longer be, ‘Hey, I’m struggling. Hey, I think I might have anxiety or bipolar or depression.’ You go on TikTok these days, people 18 to 25 talk about it without batting an eye.” (26:13 | Brad Baum)
• “We’re not saying go to your investor and say, ‘Sit down, I need to tell you about all my anxiety and depression.’ We’re saying that conversation does not even need to happen because they’ve signed a pledge and/or have the clause…You should feel empowered to just go out and do it. No one needs to know if you don’t want them to. I think you’d be surprised with how much people can empathize and sympathize if you do, but that’s your prerogative.” (33:28 | Brad Baum)

Links

Connect with Brad Baum:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/baumbrad/

Website: https://www.founderpledge.com/

Connect with Alex Raymond:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/afraymond/

Website: https://consciousentrepreneur.us/

HiveCast.fm is a proud sponsor of The Conscious Entrepreneur Podcast.

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

“The biggest mistake people make is that they’re not themselves,” says today’s guest authenticity expert Erin Weed. Using a process she created called “The Dig,” Erin helps entrepreneurs and thought leaders discover and cultivate their most authentic selves in order to most effectively communicate with their audiences. Through a series of questions, she helps her clients discover their message on both the macro and micro levels, the ‘why’ behind the ‘how,’ so that they can clearly, confidently and concisely deliver their singular message to the world in a way that makes audiences sit up, listen, engage and trust. On today’s episode of Conscious Entrepreneur, Erin talks to host Alex Raymond about getting to the head/heart core and the biggest mistakes most leaders make with their messaging. Drawing from her own experience in founding a personal safety and self-defense company Girls Fight Back, she’ll share how you can get started on your own process of discovering your true self and the unique story you have to share with the world.

People are craving human connection beyond the facts and figures. We all have three core truths running within us at the same time, Erin says. She reveals what these truths are, what they mean, and how to plug into all three to begin expressing your fullest, most honest and most genuine self.

The journey to the core isn’t an easy one, but where entrepreneurs lead, the rest of the world tends to follow.

Quotes

• “Things started to shift over time, where audiences started appreciating the polish and the perfect less and they started craving the authenticity and the realness more.” (3:41 | Erin Weed)
• “I just think it’s our responsibility to be communicating our truth. It’s not up to other people to be mind readers or heart readers or gut readers. We have to, as conscious leaders, one of the things that I feel really passionate about is encouraging conscious leaders and entrepreneurs to be the ones to go first. To be willing to go into maybe the more uncomfortable of the three dimensions of your truth.” (9:32 | Erin Weed)
• “There are all these different bypasses to get to the truth, based on how a person is wired and what’s important to them.” (14:04 | Erin Weed)
• “I realized I would create the best talks of my life when I was simply telling a story, and then finding the bigger meaning in the story so that everyone else in the room could get something from what I just shared.” (16:16 | Erin Weed)
• “A lot of people don’t like their dig words because it’s your biggest life lesson, it is your path, and sometimes we can be very resentful of what we’ve been dealt. But I’d like to believe, on some spiritual level, that we picked it for ourselves for a very big reason.” (28:28 | Erin Weed)
• “One of the things that holds conscious entrepreneurs back is we do not know or accept the fact of how unique, special and needed our voices are.” (32:49 | Erin Weed)

Links

Connect with Erin Weed:

Website: https://www.erinweed.com/

Connect with Alex Raymond:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/afraymond/

Website: https://consciousentrepreneur.us/

HiveCast.fm is a proud sponsor of The Conscious Entrepreneur Podcast.

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm